"Try to put well in practice what you
already know. In so doing, you will, in good time, discover
the hidden things you now inquire about.”
-Remy de Gourmont , 1858-1915
Proper positioning of cue ball after a shot is another
important billiard skill to master. In fact, it
is as important as mastering the cut shot. Again, observe those
professionals on ESPN, they could run the whole
table with out any difficult shots. Because they
all master this skill. The less difficult the shot the
larger the chance you could bring the ball to the
pocket. And you always want to have an easy
shot, especially in a tournament except in a billiard
exhibition.
Ok, you know how to do the angle shot. You're
good at billiards already. Now, it's time to learn
how to properly place your cue ball after you make a shot,
this is call position play. There
are couple of pointers here, one is where would
the cue ball go after it hits the object ball.
The good news is you know this already, forget
about the spin for now...it will go to the direction of
tangential line, right? What if it hits a bank?
Again, easy, with a medium stroke, it will rebound the
bank at the SAME
angle as the inbound. For example...if the cue ball hits the
bank (inbound) at 45 degree angle...it will bounce off
(rebound) at 45
degree also ( check out the diagram below). The second is how far
would it go. Again forget about any spin, the distance
depends on two factors (the angle of contact with the
object ball and the strength of your stroke).
Let's talk about the angle of contact with the object
ball for a moment. The larger the angle ( sharp
cut) the less
energy is absorbed by the object ball, and the results
is, there's still a lot left on the cue ball. So,
what's going to happen then...the cue ball will
continue on rolling until all energy is absorbed by the
friction on the billiard table. Now, the
strength of your stroke...of course...the harder you
hit the ball the more energy, the farther the distance
the cue ball will travel. Needless to say, this
skill requires a lot of finesse.
What I tell you above is purely fundamental, this
how you are going to base your position play and
combine with advanced skills in billiards, you can
achieve a more effective position play. Now, the next step
for you is...to think about what I just
said above., and apply it. One way to practice
this is by placing an object ball at reasonable
distance to the pocket. Place your cue ball at
some angle to the object ball and apply a plain
stroke. See what happens. Now do it again,
but put another object ball at different pocket. This
time when you hit the first object ball put a
consideration on the second object ball by thinking
that you should stop the cue ball at comfortable angle
so you could sink it easily. As you made your
shots, put more object balls on the table. And if you're
feeling lucky...adjust the distance of the object balls
to the pocket.
Again...practice...practice...and...practice...and
practice once more.
Good luck!!!
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